Man surprised to discover a 7″ car turn signal embedded in arm after 51 years

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GRANITE CITY, IL (KTVI) - Decades after a car wreck a mystery has been solved for a Granite City man. He had an unusual object removed from his arm and had no clue it was connected to the crash.

In 1963 Arthur Lampitt was driving home when the roads started to get slick. He hydroplaned lost control of the car and hit a semi truck head-on.

"I had 4 or 5 busted ribs and my hip socket was busted out the back end." said Arthur Lampitt.

Lampitt sustained severe lacerations on his left arm but never thought anything of it. He walked into a courthouse 35 years later.

"I went through a metal detector and saw that there was a large metal object. I said I don`t understand why that`s there." said Arthur Lampitt.

Neither did doctors, they told Lampitt that a piece of metal may have been inserted during surgery after the accident.

He lifted a concrete block last week and his muscles tightened up and his arm began to swell. Lampitt went into surgery Wednesday and Doctor Timothy Lang pulled out a seven inch eroded metal object from Lampitt`s body. He said, "That's the most unusual thing; he`s never seen something like that before."

Lampitt then did some investigating. "I went back to look at the old pictures of my wreck and noticed my turn signal was missing. We started piecing things together and figured out that is what it was."

Lampitt has been getting photo requests from all across the country. He asked me why this story was getting so much attention. I said, Arthur you do understand you had a 7-inch metal turn signal in your arm for three-fourths of your time on Earth? We both laughed.